It’s Official: Cannabis Kills Cancer

2015-09-21• CATEGORIES: Cancer, Research

Our friends over at AudioBurst have a fantastic library of audio clips on a myriad of subjects. This particular clip is by Martin Lee. Give them a like on Facebook too!

Martin Lee, author of Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana, discusses the recent revelation by the National Cancer Institute that cannabis kills cancer cells, although tests have not been carried out on humans.

“Unlike most chemotherapy drugs the cannabinoids don’t harm the healthy tissue, they seem to zero in on the unhealthy tissue, the tumors, the malignancies, and literally choke that to death … and that’s caught the government’s eye.”

Transcript follows:

00:00 – As a journalist writing about the medical marijuana phenomenon in California which is really where it started in the mid-1990s, I became aware of the extensive scientific research into certain components in the cannabis plant, it was very interesting to begin covering the science beat, or the cannabis science beat, as a journalist, and it was through that activity that I learned about CBD, cannabidiol, a particular compound in cannabis,

00:30- that’s not  psychoactive but has among other properties a significant anti-tumor and antiproliferative effects when tested on human cell lines, cancer cell lines and so forth.  So, as you noted there’s been a concession recently by the National Cancer Institute acknowledging that components of cannabis do have anti-cancer properties. – That is remarkable. – Yes, but the interesting thing is this has been known for some Click on the image below to buy the book!

01:00 – time, within the scientific research community, that the cannabinoids, as these unique marijuana molecules are called, do have this capacity to literally shrink tumors, in animal studies of cancer, and that’s very exciting because unlike most chemotherapy drugs the cannabinoids don’t harm the healthy tissue, they seem to zero in on the unhealthy tissue, the tumors, the malignancies, and literally choke that to death, while

01:30 = sparing the healthy tissue, so that is very exciting and that’s caught the government’s eye, and finally the federal government is acknowledging this but the caveat is human studies aren’t allowed, because of cannabis prohibition the research has been restricted to animal studies and studies with petri dishes and test tubes and so forth. The actual clinical studies to show whether or not, or to prove, I should say,

02:00 – the reports that people are claiming, that cannabis components have anti-cancer compounds that this still eludes us, we don’t have this information because the government hasn’t permitted these studies.
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